Tag Archives: recruiting

Recruiters don’t always get it right. Here are the top ten complaints heard when the recruitment process with an agency goes wrong. These complaints are often valid, though the reasons behind them may be more complex than is apparent. We know, however, that the right preparation, the right tools, and the right mindset can solve all of these recruiting issues.

The process of negotiating a job offer between the candidate and client can be one of the toughest tasks that a recruiter will face. One must balance what the candidate feels that they are worth in the market with the client’s budget and concern for internal equity. In many cases, both sides are fairly close, so the offer process goes pretty well and you have both a happy candidate and client. However, in some cases, the candidate may have an unrealistic impression of their worth in the marketplace or the client may not have a realistic idea of what the particular role should pay. In these cases, it is the role of an experienced recruiter to bring both parties to an agreement.Continue reading Negotiating An Offer of Employment→

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LinkedIn has been a tremendous step forward in the evolution of recruiting. From the days of snail-mailed resumes to job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder to LinkedIn, we have seen ability of job seekers to get their background in front of recruiters greatly enhanced. This is especially true for “passive jobseekers” who are generally willing to listen to a targeted job opportunity that seems appealing. The best way to do this is to make sure you have your LinkedIn profile up to date and completely filled out.

Before LinkedIn was developed (and even today), anyone who posted their resume on a job board risked someone at their current company finding out. With a robust LinkedIn profile, you have the opportunity of being approached about a tremendous job opportunity without it being apparent to your company that you would consider other options.

LinkedIn makes it very easy to develop your profile everything from your experience, education, skills & endorsements, publications, and recommendations. You can also attach documents such as your resume.

If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, develop one as soon as you can. If you have an existing profile, take the time to update it.

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For those of you in the “trenches” of daily recruiting, it is pretty obvious that the job market has become very tight for many positions; especially many technical roles. Gone are the days from a couple of years ago when a company could just run an Internet ad for a position and get several great candidates who applied. This was the case, but not in this market. Candidates have or are gaining the advantage in the market.Continue reading Winning Recruiting Strategies For A Tight Job Market→

Anyone who has been hiring recently knows that it is becoming tougher and tougher to find good candidates for tough-to-fill technical positions. Examples of these position are found in Information Technology, Software Engineering, as well as other disciplines.

We’re in a tightening labor market where the candidates, not the companies, are beginning to get the upper hand. It’s happening slowly but surely and, with the economy improving, it is only going to get worse. I see recruiters struggling because companies don’t yet recognize this shift in the market. The mindset of hiring managers is still to ask recruiters to provide multiple candidates who met their “must have” criteria (usually a length list).Continue reading Recruiting Strategies To Assist in Filling Hard-To-Find Technical Positions→

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The key to success in attracting top talent is to make your company an employer of choice. A company must set itself up as a solid, well-organized enterprise and create compelling reasons for top-notch professionals to work there. Those reasons can include excellent compensation and benefits, advancement opportunities, regularly scheduled performance reviews, and other popular perks such as flextime.

Finding the top talent is often a difficult task. Most often, these individuals are not actively seeking new employment. That means companies have to dig deeper to find the top 5 percent. Direct hiring from primary competitors is a company’s best strategy. This involves sophisticated networking and sales ability.

One networking tactic is to determine which of your current employees have already come to you from key competitors. Ask them whom they would recommend hiring from those competitors. Even if a top candidate is ultimately not interested in your position, he or she may be able to refer someone else.

Typically, companies don’t part with top talent. This talent is often well compensated, which makes the stakes higher. In addition, a company will fight to keep them. Therefore, you must be able to offer something that their current employer doesn’t satisfy, such as a new technology or–best of all–a compelling company vision.

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Throughout my years in recruiting, I have always strived to communicate well with my candidates. I know that this has been appreciated, because I have received many compliments from various candidates who appreciate me keeping them in the loop as to where things stand with a certain position.

My philosophy is simple: I look at candidates as an “asset” and someone that I want to build a relationship with. I know that candidates realize that I am just the conduit between them and the company and that the company makes the final determination on how they want to hire. However, my goal is to keep the candidates as informed as possible. If I cannot help them with this particular job; it is possible that I can help them in the future (even years down the road). With technology the way it is today, it is pretty simple to stay in touch with candidates if you want to make the effort and value the relationship.

Excellent communication with candidates not only builds goodwill with your candidate base, but it also serves to build your brand. Hopefully, this will stay in the mind of a candidate if you ever reach out to them in the future.

I get asked by candidates quite often if they can pay me to help them find their next job. I tell those candidates that 99% of recruiters (including myself) are paid by the client when we make a placement. Companies come to a specific recruiter and engage his or her services to recruit specific talent to fill specific roles. Generally, recruiters do not work as “talent agents” to represent individual candidates to “shop” them around to various companies. I will never accept money from a candidate in order to help them find a role. I don’t feel that it is morally right to do this.

However, there are firms out there that will charge candidates really good money to represent them in their job search. Under the guise of “Career Counseling”, these firms will help candidates put together a resume, coach them on how to interview, and then tell the candidates that they will market their resume to various companies and recruiters. There is a substantial fee for all this so-called service. In addition, these firms generally get the candidates to sign an agreement that the candidate will owe a certain additional fee to the Career Counseling company if the candidate finds a job, whether the Career Counseling firm helps makes the placement or not.

There is something wrong about this business model where you lead the candidate on to think that your firm will open up doors for them and never do.

My advice to candidates is NEVER pay anyone to help you find your next job. It may be OK to pay someone a small fee to assist you to prepare and/or update your resume, but most recruiters that I know, will give advice to candidates for free. In addition, there are a lot of free templates online that a candidate can use to prepare their resume.

More and more recruiters are finding candidates through social media than the traditional job boards. Most people have heard of LinkedIn which remains the most popular site for recruiters when they search for candidates. It is a must for all active and passive job seekers to have an up-to-date LinkedIn profile.

I came across a new site the other day called beBee www.bebee.com which seems to offer a lot of promise. While it is not nearly as well-known as LinkedIn, it seems like a site that most potential job seekers should be on.

beBee is a Personal Branding Platform founded by serial-entrepreneurs Javier Cámara and Juan Imaz. The network was created to allow people to showcase and share their personal brand and market themselves to employers, clients, customers, vendors and media in their respective industries. beBee allows users to network with each other through common personal and professional interests, uniting their personal and professional lives in one place.

The startup was established in February 2015, and originally launched in English, Spanish and Portuguese before expanding in French, Italian, German and Russian in 2016. beBee has more than 11.5 million users and is aiming to have 40 million users by 2018.

While my experience with beBee is limited, it seems like a well-managed and easy-to-use site.